Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

Configuring Oracle-Managed Infrastructure Maintenance

In addition to the maintenance tasks you perform, Oracle manages the patching and updating of all other infrastructure components, including the physical (Dom0), the Exadata storage servers, and the Exadata network switches. This is referred to as infrastructure maintenance.

Oracle performs regular maintenance updates the underlying infrastructure hosting the Exadata Cloud Infrastructure virtual servers. This infrastructure includes the physical host servers, the Exadata storage servers, the fabric switches in the Exadata Secure RDMA Fabric, and any control plane components. Maintenance updates may require a restart of the customer-managed guest virtual servers. The frequency of the updates depends on the region type, as follows:
  • Commercial regions: Oracle performs quarterly infrastructure maintenance updates.
  • Government regions: Oracle performs monthly infrastructure maintenance updates.
Note

To minimize disruption to your applications, you can use the OCI Console to specify the maintenance window during which the quarterly and monthly infrastructure updates take place.

Oracle releases critical security updates for Exadata on a monthly schedule. If updates for severe vulnerabilities to the infrastructure software are available, Oracle will attempt to apply those critical updates within 21 days of their availability. In most cases, critical security updates are performed while your Exadata system is online, and have no impact on the database servers running database workloads. Critical storage server security updates are applied in a rolling manner, and are not expected to affect database availability. Critical security updates are applied automatically, and cannot be deferred or scheduled. If a monthly critical security update will affect a running database server, Oracle will notify you prior to applying the update.

Parent topic: Getting Started with Exadata Cloud Infrastructure Deployment

Overview of the Infrastructure Patching Process

Infrastructure maintenance begins with patching of the Exadata compute nodes.

By default, infrastructure compute nodes are updated in a rolling fashion, where a single node is shut down, patched, and then brought back online while other nodes remain operational. This process continues until all nodes are patched.

Optionally, for any scheduled infrastructure maintenance, you can configure the patching to take place in a non-rolling fashion. For the non-rolling option, all nodes are shut down at the same time and patched. Non-rolling patching reduces the total amount of time that infrastructure maintenance takes, but does involve system down time. Non-rolling patching must be set for each individual maintenance event, and cannot be set as the default patching method. See To set the node patching order for a scheduled infrastructure maintenance run for instructions.

After compute node patching completes, Oracle patches the storage nodes. Storage server patching does not impact compute node availability.

Oracle recommends reviewing the documentation on Workload Management with Dynamic Database Services, and Continuous Availability client failover best practices to reduce the potential for an outage with your applications. By following the guidelines in the documentation, the impact of infrastructure patching will be only minor service degradation due to connection loss as compute nodes are sequentially patched.

Oracle recommends that you follow the Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA) best practices and use Oracle Data Guard to ensure the highest availability for your critical applications. For databases with Oracle Data Guard enabled, Oracle recommends that you separate the patching windows for the infrastructure instances running the primary and standby databases, and perform a switchover prior to the maintenance operations for the infrastructure instance hosting the primary database, to avoid any impact to your primary database during infrastructure patching.

Note

Regardless of the maintenance method (rolling or non-rolling), the automated maintenance verifies the Oracle Clusterware is running but does not verify that all database services and pluggable databases (PDBs) are available after a node is brought back online. The availability of database services and PDBs after maintenance can depend on the application service definition. For example, a database service, configured with certain preferred and available nodes, may be relocated during the maintenance and wouldn't automatically be relocated back to its original node after the maintenance completes. Oracle recommends reviewing the documentation on Achieving Continuous Availability for Your Applications on Exadata Cloud Systems to reduce the potential for impact to your applications. By following the documentation's guidelines, the impact of infrastructure maintenance will be only minor service degradation as database servers are sequentially updated

Table 4-2 Approximate Times for Exadata Infrastructure Patching

Exadata Shape Configuration Rolling Patching Method (Approximate Time) Non-Rolling Patching Method (Approximate Time)
Quarter rack 5-6 hours 4 hours
Half rack 10 hours 4 hours
Full rack 20 hours 4 hours
Flexible shapes (X8M and higher) 1.5 hours per compute node + 1 hour per storage node 4 hours
Note

Do not perform major maintenance operations on your databases or applications during the patching window, as these operations could be impacted by the rolling patch operations.

Using the Console to Configure Oracle-Managed Infrastructure Updates

Full Exadata Cloud Infrastructure software updates are scheduled on a quarterly basis for commercial regions, and monthly for government regions. In addition, important security updates are scheduled monthly. While you cannot opt-out of these infrastructure updates, Oracle alerts you in advance through the Cloud Notification Portal and allows scheduling flexibility to help you plan for them.

For quarterly infrastructure maintenance, you can set a maintenance window to determine when the maintenance will begin. You can also edit the maintenance method, enable custom action, view the scheduled maintenance runs and the maintenance history, and manage maintenance contacts in the in the Exadata Infrastructure Details page of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console.

Parent topic: Configuring Oracle-Managed Infrastructure Maintenance

View or Edit Quarterly Infrastructure Maintenance Preferences for Exadata Cloud Infrastructure

To edit your Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure infrastructure maintenance preferences, be prepared to provide values for the infrastructure configuration. The changes you make will only apply to future maintenance runs, not those already scheduled.

  1. Open the navigation menu. Under Oracle Database, click Exadata on Oracle Public Cloud.
  2. Select Region and Compartment, and provide the region and the compartment where the Oracle Exadata infrastructure you want to edit is located.
  3. Click Exadata Infrastructure.
  4. Click the name of the Exadata infrastructure that you want to edit.

    The Infrastructure Details page displays information about the selected Oracle Exadata infrastructure.

  5. Click Edit Maintenance Preferences.

    Edit Maintenance Preferences page is displayed.

    Note

    Changes made to maintenance preferences apply only to future maintenance, not the maintenance that has already been scheduled. To modify scheduled maintenance, see View or Edit a Scheduled Maintenance for Exadata Cloud Infrastructure.

  6. On the Edit Maintenance Preferences page, configure the following:
    • Choose a maintenance method:
      • Rolling: By default, Exadata Infrastructure is updated in a rolling fashion, one server at a time with no downtime.
      • Non-rolling: Update database and storage servers at the same time. The non-rolling maintenance method minimizes maintenance time but incurs full system downtime.
    • Enable custom action before performing maintenance on DB servers: Enable custom action only if you want to perform additional actions outside of Oracle’s purview. For maintenance configured with a rolling software update, enabling this option will force the maintenance run to wait for a custom action with a configured timeout before starting maintenance on each DB server. For maintenance configured with non-rolling software updates, the maintenance run will wait for a custom action with a configured timeout before starting maintenance across all DB servers. The maintenance run, while waiting for the custom action, may also be resumed prior to the timeout.

      • Custom action timeout (in minutes): Timeout available to perform custom action before starting maintenance on the DB Servers.

        Default: 30 minutes

        Maximum: 120 minutes

    • Maintenance schedule:
      • No preference: The system assigns a date and start time for infrastructure maintenance.
      • Specify a schedule: Choose your preferred month, week, weekday, start time, and lead time for infrastructure maintenance.
        • Under Maintenance months, specify at least one month for each quarter during which Exadata infrastructure maintenance will take place. You can select more than one month per quarter. If you specify a long lead time for advanced notification (for example, 4 weeks), you may wish to specify 2 or 3 months per quarter during which maintenance runs can occur. This will ensure that your maintenance updates are applied in a timely manner after accounting for your required lead time. Lead time is discussed in the following steps.
        • Optional. Under Week of the month, specify which week of the month, maintenance will take place. Weeks start on the 1st, 8th, 15th, and 22nd days of the month, and have a duration of 7 days. Weeks start and end based on calendar dates, not days of the week. Maintenance cannot be scheduled for the fifth week of months that contain more than 28 days. If you do not specify a week of the month, Oracle will run the maintenance update in a week to minimize disruption.
        • Optional. Under Day of the week, specify the day of the week on which the maintenance will occur. If you do not specify a day of the week, Oracle will run the maintenance update on a weekend day to minimize disruption.
        • Optional. Under Start hour, specify the hour during which the maintenance run will begin. If you do not specify a start hour, Oracle will pick the least disruptive time to run the maintenance update.
        • Under Lead Time, specify the minimum number of weeks ahead of the maintenance event you would like to receive a notification message. Your lead time ensures that a newly released maintenance update is scheduled to account for your required minimum period of advanced notification.
  7. Click Save Changes.

    If you switch from rolling to non-rolling maintenance method, then Confirm Non-rolling Maintenance Method dialog is displayed.

    1. Enter the name of the infrastructure in the field provided to confirm the changes.
    2. Click Save Changes.

To view or edit the properties of the next scheduled quarterly maintenance for Exadata Cloud Infrastructure

Review and change the properties of the Exadata Cloud Infrastructure scheduled quarterly maintenance.

Note

Viewing and editing the maintenance run is not available in Government regions. Government region customers should open a Service Request with Oracle Support to request a change to the scheduled start time.
  1. Open the navigation menu. Click Oracle Database, then click Exadata on Oracle Public Cloud.”
  2. Navigate to the Cloud Exadata infrastructure or DB system you want to access:

    Cloud Exadata infrastructure ( new resource model ): Under Exadata at Oracle Cloud, click Exadata Infrastructure. In the list of infrastructure resources, find the infrastructure you want to access and click its highlighted name to view its details page.

    DB systems: Under Bare Metal, VM, and Exadata, click DB Systems. In the list of DB systems, find the Exadata DB system you want to access, and then click its name to display details about it.

    The Infrastructure Details page displays information about the selected Oracle Exadata infrastructure.

  3. On the resource details page, under Maintenance, click the View link in the Next Quarterly Maintenance field.

    The Exadata Infrastructure Maintenance page is displayed.

  4. On the Exadata Infrastructure Maintenance page, scheduled maintenance details are listed.

    Target DB Server Version and Target Storage Server Version: These fields display the Exadata software version to be applied by the scheduled maintenance. The version applied will be the most recent certified update for Exadata infrastructures in the cloud. If the next quarterly update is not yet certified when the maintenance is scheduled, then the versions may show "LATEST" until the new quarterly update becomes available. Once the update becomes available the new version will be displayed.

    To find information on the Database Server Exadata software version or the Storage Server Exadata software version, see My Oracle Support note Exadata Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server Supported Versions (Doc ID 888828.1).

    For each scheduled Exadata Infrastructure resource maintenance event, the Maintenance page lists the following details:

    • The status of the event
    • The OCID of the event
    • The scheduled start time and date of the event
    • Click Patch Now to start the maintenance event immediately. When prompted, click Run Maintenance to confirm that you want to start the event now.

    If a maintenance event is already in progress on one or more of the VM Clusters hosted by an Exadata Infrastructure resource when a maintenance event on that resource is to start, the Exadata Infrastructure resource maintenance event is queued and begins immediately after all VM Cluster maintenance events complete.

  5. To change the next scheduled maintenance settings, click Edit Maintenance Run. On theEdit Maintenance page, do the following:
    On the Edit Maintenance page, do the following:
    • Select a maintenance method, Rolling or Non-rolling.
      Note

      If you select the Non-rolling option, an information block appears stating that components will be updated simultaneously, resulting in full system downtime.
    • Enable custom action before performing maintenance on DB servers: Enable custom action only if you want to perform additional actions outside of Oracle’s purview. For maintenance configured with a rolling software update, enabling this option will force the maintenance run to wait for a custom action with a configured timeout before starting maintenance on each DB server. For maintenance configured with non-rolling software updates, the maintenance run will wait for a custom action with a configured timeout before starting maintenance across all DB servers. The maintenance run, while waiting for the custom action, may also be resumed prior to the timeout.
      • Custom action timeout (in minutes): Maximum timeout available to perform custom action before starting maintenance on the DB Servers.

        Default: 30 minutes

        Minimum: 15 minutes

        Maximum: 120 minutes

    • To reschedule the next maintenance run, enter a date and time in the Scheduled Start time field.
      The following restrictions apply:
      • You can reschedule the infrastructure maintenance to a date no more than 180 days from the prior infrastructure maintenance. If a new maintenance release is announced prior to your rescheduled maintenance run, the newer release will be applied on your specified date. You can reschedule your maintenance to take place earlier than it is currently scheduled. You cannot reschedule the maintenance if the current time is within 2 hours of the scheduled maintenance start time.
      • Oracle reserves certain dates each quarter for internal maintenance operations, and you cannot schedule your maintenance on these dates.
    • Click Save Changes.
  6. To view estimated maintenance time details for various components, click the View link is displayed in the Total Estimated Maintenance Time field.

    The View link is displayed in the Total Estimated Maintenance Time field only if the Maintenance Method is Rolling.

    The Estimated Maintenance Time Details page is displayed with details that include:
    • Total Estimated Maintenance Time
    • Database Servers Estimated Maintenance Time
    • Storage Servers Estimated Maintenance Time
    • Order in which components are updated. In rolling maintenance, components are updated in the sequence displayed
    1. To view the number of VMs that will be restarted as part of Database Server maintenance, click the Show details link.

      The VM Location dialog is displayed.

    2. In the VM Cluster Name field, you can find out what VM cluster a particular VM belongs to.
    3. Click Close.
  7. Click Close to close the Estimated Maintenance Time Details page.

To view the maintenance history of an Exadata Cloud Infrastructure resource

This task describes how to view the maintenance history for a cloud Exadata infrastructure or DB system. resource.

  1. Open the navigation menu. Click Oracle Database, then click Exadata at Oracle Cloud.

  2. Navigate to the Cloud Exadata infrastructure or DB system you want to access:

    Cloud Exadata infrastructure (new resource model ): Under Exadata at Oracle Cloud, click Exadata Infrastructure. In the list of infrastructure resources, find the infrastructure you want to access and click its highlighted name to view its details page.

    DB systems: Under Bare Metal, VM, and Exadata, click DB Systems. In the list of DB systems, find the Exadata DB system you want to access, and then click its name to display details about it.

  3. On the resource details page, under Maintenance or Infrastructure Maintenance, click the view link in the Next Maintenance field.
  4. Click Maintenance History to see a list of past maintenance events including details on their completion state.

View and Edit Quarterly Maintenance While Maintenance is In Progress or Waiting for Custom Action

While maintenance is in progress, you can enable or disable custom action and change the custom action timeout. While maintenance is waiting for custom action, you can resume the maintenance prior to the timeout or extend the timeout.

  1. Open the navigation menu. Under Oracle Database, click Exadata on Oracle Public Cloud.
  2. Select Region and Compartment, and provide the region and the compartment where the Oracle Exadata infrastructure you want to edit is located.
  3. Click Exadata Infrastructure.
  4. Click the name of the Exadata infrastructure that you want to edit.

    The Infrastructure Details page displays information about the selected Oracle Exadata infrastructure.

    Note

    Maintenance In Progress status is displayed in the Next Maintenance field.

View and Edit Maintenance While Maintenance is In Progress
  1. Click the View link in the Next Maintenance field.

    The Exadata Infrastructure Maintenance page is displayed.

  2. Click Edit Maintenance Run.

    Edit Maintenance page is displayed.

    Note

    You can only make edits to the custom action configuration, not the maintenance method or scheduled start time. Enabling or disabling the custom action or modifying the custom action timeout while maintenance is in progress will apply to all database servers that have yet to be updated.

  3. On the Edit Maintenance page, do the following:
    • Enable custom action before performing maintenance on DB servers: Enable custom action only if you want to perform additional actions outside of Oracle’s purview. For maintenance configured with a rolling software update, enabling this option will force the maintenance run to wait for a custom action with a configured timeout before starting maintenance on each DB server. For maintenance configured with non-rolling software updates, the maintenance run will wait for a custom action with a configured timeout before starting maintenance across all DB servers. The maintenance run, while waiting for the custom action, may also be resumed prior to the timeout.
      • Custom action timeout (in minutes): Timeout available to perform custom action before starting maintenance on the DB Servers.

        Default: 30 minutes

        Minimum: 15 minutes

        Maximum: 120 minutes

  4. Click Save Changes.

    If you have configured the rolling maintenance method, then the View link is displayed in the Total Estimated Maintenance Time field.

    1. Click View.
      Estimated Maintenance Time Details page is displayed with details that include:
      • Total Estimated Maintenance Time
      • Database Servers Estimated Maintenance Time
      • Storage Servers Estimated Maintenance Time
      • Network Switches Estimated Maintenance Time
      • Order in which components are updated. In rolling maintenance, components are updated in the sequence displayed.
    2. Click Close.
View and Edit Maintenance While Maintenance is Waiting for Custom Action
  1. Click the View link in the Next Maintenance field.

    Exadata Infrastructure Maintenance page is displayed.

    Note

    • Editing a maintenance run is not available while waiting for custom action.
    • While maintenance is waiting for custom action, an information block is displayed. The information block is removed after the maintenance resumes.
  2. On the information block, do one of the following:
    1. Click Resume Maintenance Now to resume the maintenance, proceeding to the next database server.

      Resume Maintenance dialog is displayed. Click Resume Maintenance Now.

    2. Click Extend Custom Action Timeout.

      You can extend timeout multiple times within the maximum allowable time of 2 hours. If you try extending beyond the maximum limit, then the system displays the Cannot Extend Custom Action Timeout dialog indicating that the custom action timeout has already been extended to the maximum allowable 2 hours and you cannot extend it further.

Monitor Infrastructure Maintenance Using Lifecycle State Information

The lifecycle state of your Exadata Infrastructure resource enables you to monitor when the maintenance of your infrastructure resource begins and ends.

In the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console, you can see lifecycle state details messages on the Exadata Infrastructure Details page when a tooltip is displayed beside the Status field. You can also access these messages using the ListCloudExadataInfrastructures API, and using tools based on the API, including SDKs and the OCI CLI.

During infrastructure maintenance operations, you can expect the following:
  • If you specify a maintenance window, then patching begins at your specified start time. The infrastructure resource's lifecycle state changes from Available to Maintenance in Progress.
    Note

    The prechecks are now done prior to the start of the maintenance.
  • When Exadata database server maintenance starts, the infrastructure resource's lifecycle state is Maintenance in Progress, and the associated lifecycle state message is, The underlying infrastructure of this system (dbnodes) is being updated.
  • When storage server maintenance starts, the infrastructure resource's lifecycle state is Maintenance in Progress, and the associated lifecycle state message is, The underlying infrastructure of this system (cell storage) is being updated and this will not impact Database availability.
  • After storage server maintenance is complete, the networking switches are updated one at a time, in a rolling fashion.
  • When maintenance is complete, the infrastructure resource's lifecycle state is Available, and the Console and API-based tools do not provide a lifecycle state message.

Receive Notifications about Your Infrastructure Maintenance Updates

There are two ways to receive notifications. One is through email to infrastructure maintenance contacts and the other one is to subscribe to the maintenance events and get notified.

Oracle schedules maintenance run of your infrastructure based on your scheduling preferences and sends email notifications to all your infrastructure maintenance contacts. You can login to the console and view details of the schedule maintenance run. Appropriate maintenance related events will be generated as Oracle prepares for your scheduled maintenance run, for example, precheck, patching started, patching end, and so on. For more information about all maintenance related events, see Oracle Cloud Exadata Infrastructure Events. In case, if there are any failures, then Oracle reschedules your maintenance run, generates related notification, and notifies your infrastructure maintenance contacts.

For more information about Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Events, see Overview of Events. To receive additional notifications other than the ones sent to infrastructure maintenance contacts, you can subscribe to infrastructure maintenance events and get notified using the Oracle Notification service, see Notifications Overview.

Managing Infrastructure Maintenance Contacts

Learn to manage your Exadata infrastructure maintenance contacts.

Parent topic: Configuring Oracle-Managed Infrastructure Maintenance

To manage maintenance contacts in an Exadata Cloud Infrastructure

Manage contacts for Exadata infrastructure maintenance notifications using the Console.

To prevent an Exadata infrastructure administrator from being overwhelmed by system update notifications, you can specify up to 10 email addresses of people to whom maintenance notifications are sent.

  1. Open the navigation menu. Click Oracle Database, then click Bare Metal, VM, and Exadata.
  2. In the Exadata at Oracle Cloud section, click Exadata Infrastructure to display a list of Exadata infrastructures in the default compartment. You can select a different compartment from the Compartment drop-down located in the List Scope section.
  3. In the list of Exadata infrastructure resources, find the infrastructure you want to access and click its highlighted name to view its details page.
  4. In the Maintenance section, click Manage in the Customer Contacts field to display the Manage Contacts dialog.
  5. Click the Add Contacts button to display a field in which to enter a valid email address. You can have up to 10 maintenance contacts for each Exadata infrastructure.
  6. To edit an email address, in the Manage Contacts dialog, select the box preceding the email address you want to edit and click the Edit button.
  7. To remove an email address from the list, in the Manage Contacts dialog, select the box preceding the email address you want to remove and click the Remove button.